Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a recommendation technology for presenting information on an item related to a selected item through an operation by a user, as a recommended item to the user.
Description of the Related Art
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2008-282098 proposes a system in which when detailed information on a product clicked by a user is displayed as a Web page, plural recommended products related to the clicked product are displayed in a recommendation information display column on the same Web page.
In the above-described system, in a case where one of the products displayed in the recommendation information display column is clicked, the Web page is switched to a Web page where detailed information on the clicked recommended product is displayed. Along with the switching to the Web page where the detailed information on the newly clicked product is displayed, the display in the recommendation information display column is also switched to information on recommended products related to the newly clicked product.
According to Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2008-282098, in a case where the user is interested in plural products among the recommended products displayed on the recommendation information display column, in order to view detailed information on each of the products of interest, the user clicks the respective products. However, when one product among the displayed recommended products is clicked, the display in the recommendation information display column is also updated on the basis of the relevant clicked product. Therefore, after the detailed information on the relevant clicked product is checked, the user restores the display to the Web page where the recommended products are first displayed. To restore the display to the original Web page, a back button in a Web browser for displaying the Web page is used in general. For that reason, in a case where the user wishes to view the details of the plural recommended products displayed in the recommendation information display column, the user repeatedly performs the operation in which after one product is clicked in the recommendation information display column, the back button of the Web browser is clicked, and again, another product is clicked in the recommendation information display column.
However, it is bothersome for the user to press the back button of the Web browser for only restoring the information in the recommendation information display column, and this operation is troublesome. Furthermore, in a case where the display is restored to the Web page where the detailed information on the original product is displayed using the back button of the Web browser, a recommended product different from the previous recommended product may be displayed in the recommendation information display column in some cases. This is because the recommendation information related to the relevant product may be updated in real time on a Web server side in some cases, and when the back button of the Web browser is pressed, instead of the cached Web page on the Web browser side, a Web page newly obtained from the Web server may be displayed in some cases. In that case, the recommended product that the user has been interested in at the time of the previous recommendation information display might not be displayed at the time of the next recommendation information display.